Oregon

(ŏr`ĭgən, –gŏn), state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. It is bordered by Washington, largely across the Columbia River (N), Idaho, partially across the Snake River (E), Nevada and California (S), and the Pacific Ocean (W).

Geography

Oregon's contrasting physical features are characterized by great forested mountain slopes and treeless basins, rushing rivers and barren playas, lush valleys and extensive wastelands. The major determinant for these unusual climatic differences is the Cascade Range, a rugged mountain chain running north to south c.100 mi (160 km) inland. As the eastward-moving air masses, warmed by the Alaska Current and heavy with moisture from the Pacific Ocean, rise and meet the cooler mountain temperatures, rain is precipitated over the western third of Oregon. Dry air and continental climate prevail over the eastern two thirds of the state.

The Pacific shoreline (c.300 mi/480 km) is bordered by narrow coastal plains of sandy beaches, luxuriant pastures, and occasional jutting promontories. About 25 mi (40 km) inland, the rugged Coast Range rises to heights of 4,000 ft (1,220 m) to serve as the western wall of the Willamette Valley. In the valley, where the navigable Willamette flows north through miles of rolling farmlands into the Columbia River, lie the agricultural, commercial, and industrial centers of the state. PortlandPortland.1 City (1990 pop. 64,358), seat of Cumberland co., SW Maine, situated on a small peninsula and adjacent land, with a large, deepwater harbor on Casco Bay; settled c.1632, set off from Falmouth and inc. 1786......Click the link for more information., the largest city, whose metropolitan area contains nearly half the state's population, straddles the Willamette near its junction with the Columbia. SalemSalem.1 City (1990 pop. 38,091), seat of Essex co., NE Mass., on an inlet of Massachusetts Bay; inc. 1629. Its once famous harbor has silted up. Salem has electronic, leather, and machinery industries, and tourists are drawn to its many historical landmarks......Click the link for more information., the capital, and EugeneEugene,city (1990 pop. 112,669), seat of Lane co., W Oregon, on the Willamette River; inc. 1862. A processing and shipping center in a farming area, the "Emerald City" has lumbering, food-processing, and microchip and other electronics industries......Click the link for more information., the second largest city, lie southward in the valley, which is sealed off in the south by the low range of the Calapooya Mts.

The snowcapped volcanic peaks of the Cascades are E of the Willamette, with beautiful Mt. Hood rising to the state's highest elevation (11,235 ft/3,424 m). Mighty stands of timber, many protected as national forests, cover the slopes. Eastward the Cascades level out into high plateaus drained in the north by the Deschutes and the John Day rivers. To the south a variegated pattern of marshland and mountain merges in the east into the semiarid Basin and Range Region. Little vegetation grows here, and the absence of potable water makes habitation difficult.

North of this area rise the pine-covered Blue and Wallowa mts., which in some places extend to the Snake River to form precipitous gorges. Other parts of the region where the Snake cuts through the plateau are more level and have been made productive through irrigation. Oregon's irrigation projects include the Deschutes, the Umatilla, and the Vale; the Klamath, shared with California; and the Boise and the Owyhee, shared with Idaho.

Economy

Oregon's major sources of farm income are greenhouse products, wheat, cattle (huge herds graze on the plateaus E of the Cascades), and dairy items. Hay, wheat, pears, and onions are important, and the state is one of the nation's leading producers of snap beans, peppermint, sweet cherries (orchards are particularly numerous in the N Willamette Valley), broccoli, and strawberries. Oregon has developed an important and growing wine industry since 1980.

The state's 30.7 million acres (12.4 million hectares) of rich forestland (almost half the state) comprise the country's greatest reserves of standing timber; huge areas have been set aside for conservation. Wood processing was long the state's major industry; Douglas fir predominates in the Cascades and western pine in the eastern regions. Since 1991 many areas have been closed to logging in order to protect endangered wildlife. Nevertheless, Oregon has retained its title as the nation's foremost lumber state, producing more than 5 billion board feet a year. Other major products are food, paper and paper items, machinery, and fabricated metals. Printing and publishing are important businesses. In recent decades Oregon (now sometimes called "Silicon Forest") has become home to many computer and electronic companies; growth in this sector has offset job losses in the timber industry.

Abundant, cheap electric power is supplied by numerous dams, most notably those on the Columbia River—Bonneville Dam, The Dalles Dam, and McNary Dam. The John Day Dam is one of the largest hydroelectric generators in the world. The dams also aid in flood control and navigation. The Bonneville Dam, in the steep gorge where the Columbia River pierces the Cascades, enables large vessels to travel far inland, and although river traffic is less vital than formerly, the Columbia River cities still serve as transport centers for a vast hinterland to the east.

Oregon's river resources are one of its greatest assets. Its salmon-fishing industry, centered around Astoria, is one of the world's largest; other catches are tuna and crabs. Although mining is still underdeveloped, Oregon leads the nation in the production of nickel.

Oregon's beautiful ocean beaches, lakes, and mountains make tourism another important industry. Major attractions are the Oregon Caves National Monument, Lewis and Clark National and State Historical Parks, and McLoughlin House National Historic Site (see National Parks and MonumentsNational Parks and Monuments

National ParksName Type1 Location Year authorized Sizeacres (hectares)DescriptionAcadia NP SE Maine 1919 48,419 (19,603) Mountain and coast scenery......Click the link for more information., table); Crater Lake National ParkCrater Lake National Park,183,224 acres (74,206 hectares), SW Oreg., in the Cascade Range; est. 1902. Crater Lake, 20 sq mi (52 sq km), lies in a huge pit that was created when the top of a prehistoric volcano was blown off by a violent eruption......Click the link for more information. is a famed destination. There are 13 national forests, one national grassland, and more than 220 state parks.

Government and Higher Education

Oregon still operates under its original (1857) constitution. Its executive branch is headed by a governor elected for a four-year term. Its legislature has a senate with 30 members and an assembly with 60 members. The state elects two senators and five representatives to the U.S. Congress and has seven electoral votes. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat elected governor in 1994, was reelected in 1998. He was succeeded by fellow Democrat Ted Kulongoski, who was elected in 2002 and reelected in 2006. In 2010 Kitzhaber was again elected governor. He was reelected in 2014 but resigned in 2015 amid investigations into his fiancée's financial affairs. Kate Brown, a Democrat and Oregon's secretary of state, succeeded him as governor, and won the office in a special election in 2016.

Among the state's more prominent institutions of higher learning are the Univ. of Oregon at Eugene; Oregon State Univ. at Corvallis; Reed College and Portland State Univ. at Portland; and Willamette Univ. at Salem.

History

Early Exploration and Fur Trading

Initial European interest in the region was aroused by the search for the Northwest PassageNorthwest Passage,water routes through the Arctic Archipelago, N Canada, and along the northern coast of Alaska between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Even though the explorers of the 16th cent......Click the link for more information.. Spanish seamen skirted the Pacific coast from the 16th to the 18th cent., hoping to claim the area. The English may first have arrived in the person of Sir Francis Drake, who sailed along the coast in 1579, possibly as far as Oregon.

Two centuries later, in 1778, Capt. James Cook, seeking the award of £20,000 for the discovery of the Northwest Passage, charted some of the coastline. By this time the Russians were pushing southward from posts in Alaska and the British fur companies were exploring the West. Oregon's furs promised to become an important factor in the rapidly expanding China trade, and the Oregon coast was soon active with the vessels of several nations engaged in fur trade with the Native Americans. British captains, among them John Meares and George Vancouver, made the coastal area known, but it was an American, Robert Gray, who first sailed up the Columbia River (1792), thus establishing U.S. claim to the areas that it drained.

Canadian traders of the North West Company were approaching the Columbia River country when the overland Lewis and Clark expedition arrived in 1805. David Thompson was already making his way to the lower river when John Jacob Astor's agents (in the Pacific Fur Company) founded Astoria, the first permanent settlement in the Oregon country. In the War of 1812 the post was sold (1813) to the North West CompanyNorth West Company,fur-trading organization in North America in the late 18th and early 19th cent.; it was composed of Montreal trading firms and fur traders. Formation.....Click the link for more information., but in 1818 a treaty provided for 10 years of joint rights for the United States and Great Britain in Oregon (i.e., the whole Columbia River area). This agreement was later extended. The North West Company merged with the Hudson's Bay CompanyHudson's Bay Company,corporation chartered (1670) by Charles II of England for the purpose of trade and settlement in the Hudson Bay region of North America and for exploration toward the discovery of the Northwest Passage to Asia......Click the link for more information. in 1821, and soon the region was dominated by John McLoughlin at Fort Vancouver.

Settlement and Statehood

In 1842 and 1843 enormous wagon trains began the Great Migration westward over the Oregon TrailOregon Trail,overland emigrant route in the United States from the Missouri River to the Columbia River country (all of which was then called Oregon). The pioneers by wagon train did not, however, follow any single narrow route......Click the link for more information.. Trouble between the settlers and the British followed. The Americans set out to form their own government, and demanded the British be removed from the whole of the Columbia River country up to lat. 54°40'N; one of the slogans of the 1844 election was "Fifty-four forty or fight." War with Britain was a threat momentarily, but diplomacy prevailed. In 1846 the boundary was set at the line of lat. 49°N, but disagreements over the interpretation of the 1846 treaty were not successfully arbitrated until 1872 (see San Juan Boundary DisputeSan Juan Boundary Dispute,controversy between the United States and Great Britain over the U.S.–British Columbia boundary. It is sometimes called the Northwest Boundary Dispute......Click the link for more information.).

Two years later the Oregon Territory was created, embracing the area W of the Rockies from the 42d to the 49th parallel. The area was reduced with the creation of the Washington Territory in 1853, and Oregon became a state in 1859 with a constitution that prohibited slaveholding but also forbade free blacks from entering the state. Although the California gold rush caused a temporary exodus of settlers, it also brought a new market for Oregon's goods, and the Oregon gold strike that followed attracted some permanent settlement to the eastern hills and valleys.

Wheat farming prospered and in 1867–68 a surplus crop was shipped to England—the beginning of Oregon's great wheat export trade. Cattle and sheep were driven up from California to graze on the tallgrass of the semiarid plateaus, and soon cattle barons, such as Henry Miller, acquired huge herds. They dominated the industry until the late 19th cent., when sheepmen and homesteaders succeeded in reducing the cattle range. The 1850s, 60s, and 70s were plagued by Native American uprisings, but by 1880 troubles with the Native American were over, and the next few decades brought increasing settlement and internal improvements.

Railroads and Industrialization

During the 1880s, and largely under the management of Henry Villard of the Northern Pacific RR, transcontinental rail lines were completed to the coast and down the Willamette Valley into California, bringing new trade and stimulating the beginnings of manufacture. Lumbering, which had long been important, became a leading industry. Seemingly overnight logging camps and sawmills were built in the western foothills. The huge stands of Douglas fir and cedar brought fortunes to the lumbering kings, but the threat to natural resources led ultimately to the creation of national forests.

By the time of the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition at Portland in 1905, less than 50 years after statehood had been gained, the frontier era had passed. Most of the feuding on the eastern plateaus was over, and cattle and sheep grazed peacefully on fenced-in ranges. In spring the Willamette Valley was abloom with fruit blossoms, and the river cities were busy with trade and industry.

Reform Movements and Environmental Issues

Oregon has been a leader in social, environmental, and political reforms. It was the first state, for example, to institute initiative, referendum, and recall; to ease the laws governing the use of marijuana; and to initiate a ban against nonrecyclable containers. Several issues have sharply divided conservatives and liberals; one of the most important has been the question of minority groups. In the 1880s the influx of Chinese threatened the labor market and brought violent anti-Chinese sentiment, and in the 20th cent. there was opposition to the Japanese. Feeling against minorities has never been statewide, however, and large groups have vigorously opposed it.

In the 1930s one of the most disputed issues was the question of whether the development of power should be public or private. Today, however, it is widely recognized that the federal power and irrigation projects have had a profoundly positive effect on the economy of the entire Pacific Northwest. Many acres have been opened to irrigated farming, and the tremendous industrial expansion of World War II was to a large extent dependent on Bonneville power.

Environmental issues have dominated Oregon politics since the 1970s. Controversy arose in the late 1980s over the spotted owl, which has become endangered as old-growth forest has been cut down. Restrictions on logging on public lands were initiated in 1991, and attempts to establish forest policies acceptable to both environmentalists and the timber industry bogged down as other species were also shown to be in danger. There also is concern that the state's numerous hydroelectric dams are disrupting the migratory cycle of Pacific salmon.

Oregon,

city (1990 pop. 18,334), Lucas co., NW Ohio, a suburb adjacent to Toledo, on Lake Erie; inc. 1958. It is a port with railroad-owned and -operated docks. The city has industries producing oil, chemicals, and metal products. The majority of the city's area is open farmland, where tomatoes, soybeans, greenhouse vegetables, fruits, and grains are grown.

Oregon

a state on the Pacific coast of the USA. Area, 251,200 sq km. Population, 2,100,000 (1970), of which 67 percent is urban. Salem is the state capital, and Portland is the major port and economic center.

In the west are the Cascade and Oregon Coast ranges. Mount Hood volcano in the Cascades rises to an elevation of 3,427 m. Most of the state’s interior is occupied by the Columbia Plateau, in the north, and the edge of the Great Basin, in the south. The coastal climate is moderate and humid, and the inland regions have a dry continental climate. The mountain slopes are covered with forests of Douglas fir, ponderosa pine, and other valuable trees. Oregon leads the country in timber reserves and lumber production.

Industry employed 174,000 people in 1970. The major industries are lumbering and woodworking. The pulp-and-paper industry is being developed. Oregon’s food-processing enterprises handle fish, fruit, berries, and milk products. Other industries are metalworking and machine building, including production of electrical equipment, and smelting of aluminum and nickel. In 1970 more than 30 billion kW-hr of electric power were produced in Oregon, primarily at hydrolectric power plants on the Columbia River and its tributaries the Willamette and Deschutes. There is intensive agriculture and dairy farming in the valleys and extensive stock raising on the dry plateaus, which also have some crop farming on irrigated land. Oregon’s chief cash crops are fodder grasses, wheat, potatoes, and barley. The state is the principal US grower of pears and sweet cherries. Cattle, sheep, and hogs are raised; in 1972 there were 1,593,000 head of cattle, including 103,000 milk cows, and 517,000 sheep. The coastal fisheries catch salmon and Pacific halibut.

M. E. POLOVITSKAIA

Oregon

Thirty-third state; admitted on February 14, 1859

While Admission Day is often commemorated by programs in schools, it is not a legal holiday in Oregon.

Oregon

a state of the northwestern US, on the Pacific: consists of the Coast and Cascade Ranges in the west and a plateau in the east; important timber production. Capital: Salem. Pop.: 3 559 596 (2003 est.). Area: 251 418 sq. km (97 073 sq. miles)

Seafood OREGON, a consortium of the Oregon Dungeness Crab, Trawl, Salmon, and Albacore commissions, is presenting the competition and will sponsor the winning chef's appearance at the Great American Seafood Cook-Off.

Presented by Fred Meyer, the first annual Oregon Seafood & Wine Festival will take place February 3-4, 2006 at the Oregon Convention Center.

The NSF award, the latest in a string made to Oregon researchers specializing in nanoscience, adds luster to July's announcement that Oregon's Congressional delegation secured $5 million for ONAMI research at the University of Oregon, Oregon State University (OSU) and Portland State University (PSU).

UO researchers led the grant proposal, which also includes scientists at PSU and OSU as part of a greater ONAMI effort to better equip research facilities in Oregon.

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